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Uganda Update |
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1. Appreciating FOCUS Uganda and Sports Outreach Ministry 2. Visiting People in the Mulago Slum of Kampala 3. Appreciating the Ugandan Students 4. Talking Theology at the Boda Boda Station 5. Engaging Muslims in Kampala 6. Visiting Prisoners in Gulu 7. Teaching on Spiritual Warfare and Christus Victor 8. Learning Evangelism Styles 9. Food and Other Fun Experiences! 10. So Now What?
Pictured: All of us – the InterVarsity USA and FOCUS Uganda students and staff – after we helped build the wall behind us around the FOCUS Uganda office, located in the slums of Kampala.
Theme 1: Appreciating FOCUS Uganda and Sports Outreach Ministry
In Gulu, we also visited Child Voice International, which focuses on the rehabilitation of women who were child soldiers in Joseph Kony's LRA rebel army. We were privileged to hear the stories of women who were part of CVI (below, left). They had been abducted, forced to be "wives" to the officers, bear their children, be cooks and porters for the rebel army, and sometimes fight. Many of the women are doing well now. Some are employed in agriculture or handicrafts, often making beaded jewelry (below, right). Our hearts went out to one woman who did not make eye contact with us - we got the sense that there is much restorative love that the Lord wants to pour out on these individuals.
Yet there is much to be in awe of. One reason I was excited to go to Uganda was to see how Christian restorative justice is worked out. FOCUS staff Aaron Opiyo told me about an elder at his church who was an officer in the rebel LRA movement, who along with his church community is a testament to God's reconciliation and restoration. We heard of a man who reconciled with another man who cut off his lips. A Ugandan woman, Angelina Atyam, forgave the brutal LRA man who abducted her daughter Charlotte to be his "wife", approached the man's mother to declare her forgiveness of him, and even spoke with him on the phone, inviting him to dinner at her home. Bishop Macleord Ochola, a Ugandan Anglican bishop, lost his wife to a landmine laid by rebels after trying to bring reconciliation between the rebel movement and the Ugandan government; but he continued in reconciliation work until his retirement in 2002. "Restorative justice" takes a vision for relationship as primary and works towards that; it has a certain flexibility to it as it points towards a goal. In the U.S., we tend to focus on other kinds of justice: namely, "libertarian justice" which comes from Rousseau. "Libertarian justice" takes the individual as primary and says all our relationships are just social constructs. Rousseau argued that we were born free into a state of nature, so that the government that interferes least is the most just. To some degree John Locke and Adam Smith, influential economists of the free market, agree. But as a person of Asian descent, I thought we were born into families, with benefits given and obligations demanded of us; and this is partly why I think Enlightenment individualism is rather bogus. For in this individualistic framework, it is not possible to say what positive duties and obligations we legally have to others; we can only really speak of what negative rights we have to be free of other people's interference, including their moral claims on us. I think this is a problem of American culture and lies at the root of why our Civil Rights gains have eroded since the 1960's and economic inequality has increased massively since the 1970's.
Many Christians we met in all these Ugandan ministries inspired me to engage the most pressing issues of our time with the love of Jesus. The intentionality of people to be present in the midst of specific problems, and then to develop ministry in partnership with their neighbors, in organic ways, was just impressive. Especially the direction that the Sports Outreach Ministry took. Their farm in Koro was amazing with its Holstein cows, local chickens, pigs, rows and rows of corn, and other vegetables. It reminded me of Lawndale Community Church in Chicago, which started with a safe, clean, and friendly laundromat because people said that's what they needed. It helps me to see how God works to restore people to who He always intended them to be.
Theme 2: Visiting People in the Mulago Slum, Kampala
The believer’s argument is not proof, but merely a demonstration of logic. It shows that the ‘problem of human suffering’ arises within a theistic framework, and primarily a Christian framework, and not outside of it. ‘Proof’ for Christian belief is something we’d have to find in the historicity of Jesus and his resurrection. But on that foundation, the believer’s argument is a valid one. The skeptic’s argument, however, is not based on any demonstrable fact, but a psychological accusation in the tradition of Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche. It uses the hermeneutic of suspicion to cast doubt on the mind of anyone who is suffering: Suffering people are less likely to reason properly about the existence of God, and irrationally hope in a good God to save them. So suffering people cannot be trusted to adequately reason through this question; it is only people who are not suffering (i.e. especially those who enjoy western style luxuries) who can be trusted to think straight.
But what if the person who enjoys western style luxuries is the one who is not thinking straight? Perhaps a subtle form of arrogance has crept into their thinking that is difficult to acknowledge? For the skeptic’s accusation is not only a psychological sneer, it is demonstrably not factually true. Prior to ancient Israel, no people group that we know of hoped for a good God to save them from their suffering. Ancient Israel experienced particular moments of deliverance from a God who claimed to be good, and He laid an epistemological foundation for people to wonder at whether this God might be the one true God who is truly good and will defeat evil in the world. This unusual God left historical and literary evidence about His purpose and character. Thus, before ancient Israel and the formation of the Hebrew Bible, it was simply not logically open (or emotionally possible) to any human being to hope that a good God would deliver us from our suffering and be victorious over evil. What reason would anyone have to hope that evil would one day be defeated? That is why Hindu, Buddhist, or Jainist theories of escape from this physical world to some soul-heaven were much more common. The ancient Greeks along with the Hindus believed that the world would stay the same and the best you could do was be reincarnated into a higher life form or higher human caste with less suffering, and maybe escape into the nirvana of non-being. The biblical tradition was utterly unusual for its insistence on a victory of good over evil played out in this physical world. The expectation for this was held in place by powerful actions done by this God in history, demonstrating His goodness and His ability to fulfill His remarkable good promises. Even now, why would suffering people even hope for more than a personal, private escape from this world? Why would people hope that this world would be restored, transfigured, and changed? Only people who have been exposed to a new type of hope would imagine it: a hope that embraces not only the oppressed but the oppressor, not only the poor but the rich, not only one’s own people but one’s enemies. But that hope, the hope found in Jesus, is so radical so as to demand a solid reason for believing it. It is not just hope conjured out of thin air. And if the hope is for a final resurrection, that is, the renewal of the physical world without the stain of evil and sin and death, then such a claim can only be anchored in place by a preliminary resurrection in real history – that of Jesus of Nazareth into a renewed human body without the stain of sin – observed, handled, touched, and transformative.
Theme 3: Appreciating the Ugandan Students
Theme 4: Talking Theology at the Boda Boda Station
At about that time, there was a small collision between two people on bodas on the curb right in front of us. The men at the station laughed and said, ‘There must be a demon there, because that’s the second time that happened.’ I asked Dominic, ‘What’s the difference between a demon and the god you worship?’ He said, ‘The demon causes evil and laughs at us.’ I replied, ‘But if your god isn’t doing anything to help, then he may as well be sitting back and laughing at us too. Doing nothing in response to human evil is to be evil.’ At some point, he changed the topic and said, ‘The trouble with you Christians is that you want people to leave behind the traditional gods. Why can’t you worship Jesus and other gods?’ I didn’t want to leave our conversation behind, so I asked in response, ‘What’s so bad about leaving behind bad gods?’ He didn’t answer that; instead, he shifted to another question. ‘Why is Jesus white, and the devil black?’ I said, ‘Jesus isn’t white. He’s Jewish, so he probably looked like an Arab. And the devil isn’t black. We don’t know what color he is.’ At about that time, we had to get going, but Dominic turned to shake my hand and say, ‘Let’s talk again.’
I was excited to find out that theological discussions about the character of God vs. the character of other ‘gods’ can happen in the slums of Kampala as much as they can at Boston College and Harvard. Essentially, I was doing with this boda boda driver what I do with college students when they come to the What Can We Do About Evil? proxe station. The ‘god’ that most people infer from the world around us is a god who is either partly evil or passive, and to be passive in the face of human evil is to be evil. But Jesus reveals a God who is actively doing something against human evil at its very source: in the corruption of our human nature.
Theme 5: Engaging Muslims in Kampala
The next day, we came back to the same area of Mulago, found Adam, and I asked him, ‘Why did Mohammed marry eleven wives when he told all the other Muslim men that they could only have up to four wives?’ He argued, ‘Because the prophets are special. They could do certain things that others can’t. Do you fast for 40 days? Jesus did that, right?’ I said, ‘Yes, Jesus did that, but he didn’t make that a law. Mohammed made it a law that you could only have up to four wives (Qur'an 4:23), and he broke his own law. How could he do that?’ He had no answer for that. Then I asked him about sex slaves (called ‘all that your right hand possess’ in Qur'an 23:5 – 6; 33:50,52; 70:29 – 30; for example, ‘Successful indeed are the believers…who guard their private parts [refrain from sex] except before their mates [wives] or those whom their right hand possess [slave girls]’ (Qur’an 23:1, 5 – 6)). He denied that it happens in Islam. Neri and Emma both chimed in and said it happens in Sudan and other Muslim areas. Finally I asked him if he had read the whole Qur’an. He said no. But he said that he believed that everything in there was true. We pointed out that he believed that without having read it all. We asked if the Qur’an being in Arabic hurt him when it came to understanding his own faith, because he had argued on the first day that the Qur’an being in Arabic was an advantage over the Bible being written in multiple languages; that seemed to hurt his ability to understand his own faith. I wrote down Quranic verses about slavery for him to look at, so I gave those to his wife the next day, since he couldn’t meet with us because of work. As our whole team went door to door in the Mulago slum neighborhood, four Muslims gave their lives to Jesus; and Amy and Emma met a Muslim man in the Mulago Hospital who was on the verge of receiving Jesus.
Theme 6: Visiting Prisoners in Gulu
Theme 7: Teaching on Spiritual Warfare and Christus Victor
Also, the episode with the man in the prison in Gulu who fell over and went into some kind of muscular contortion might have been a demonic episode. I was actually excited to give a sermon on spiritual warfare and see what would happen, because I had given a few messages on spiritual warfare back at home in my church, the Gathering Christian Fellowship, and felt energized by meeting with God in personal study and also by hearing people’s responses to the messages. I have really enjoyed reflecting on the Christus Victor side of the atonement stressing Jesus’ victory over our sin and evil inside us as well as the powers and evil forces outside us. Before the Gulu prison, I had never given a call to faith of ‘switch sides’ and ‘leave the rebel camp’ and ‘come over to God’s side.’ I loved it. I knew that Jesus’ victory over Satan had vast significance for these men. Which brings me back to the man who fell over at the end of the service. If that the man had been affected by a demon, then it still leaves me with questions. Why wasn’t the man’s decision to receive Jesus enough to cast out the demon? Why do people afflicted by demons seem to need assistance from Christians outside themselves? These are questions I’ll have to study and think through.
Theme 8: Learning Evangelism Styles
For example, a young woman named Prossy met us in her doorway in the Mulago slum community of Kampala. After some polite chit-chat, Prossy described her spiritual life. She said she was going to a Catholic church at the time, but had not made a personal commitment to Jesus. I learned a lot from Emma and how he talked to her. He said, simply, that Jesus is interested in a personal relationship with her; when he comes again as the judge of every person, he won’t call people by the labels they wore. It’s not that Catholics or Anglicans or Pentecostals mean something to Jesus as labels. It’s not that Catholics will be saved while Anglicans won’t be. It’s about whether each person has a personal relationship with Jesus. After a few minutes, Prossy decided she wanted to make that commitment. She wondered about her sin, though. Could it really be forgiven, she asked? I was dumbfounded, and a bit skeptical. This woman was committing to Jesus after a few minutes of talking to us? No one had asked her these questions before? Well, probably some people had. But she was ready to do that now. We asked her if she had a Bible and she said no. She read and spoke English. So later that afternoon, I came back with a Bible. The next day, Neri and I walked by and read John 1:1 – 18 with her. She asked a few questions, too, one of which was from Matthew 24 about the Son not knowing something that the Father alone knew. I was impressed. She clearly had some knowledge of the Bible and things were falling into place.
Theme 9: Food and Other Fun Experiences What was Ugandan food like? Absolutely delicious!! I'm trying to learn how to make chapati (Indian flour tortillas that Ugandans love), Ugandan style beans and rice, and a cabbage and carrot dish.
Did you see the Nile and Lake Victoria? Yup. In fact, FOCUS Uganda owns a campground right on the shores of Lake Victoria, the source of the Nile (left). It made me realize that the Garden of Eden was portrayed literarily in Genesis 2 as the source of four major rivers. For ancient river civilizations, there seemed to be a mystique about the source of rivers. And at the halfway point of our trip, we stayed at a camp near the Nile in Murchison Falls National Park (right, me with with Brian and Monick).
What other cool things did you see? During the halfway point of our trip, we visited Murchison Falls National Park, where the Nile River narrows to its narrowest point and then tumbles through a gorge amidst a huge spray of mist. Pictured on the top right are Sang, Connie, and me at the falls. And then we went on a driving safari through beautiful Murchison Park, Uganda's national treasure, where we saw an amazing assortment of animals: antelope, water buffalo, lions, giraffes, hippos, a bald eagle, vultures, warthogs, and elephants (bottom left and right).
Theme 10: So Now What? Please join me in prayer for two things. First, and most importantly, each U.S. student is thinking about ways to share about their experience in Uganda with their fellowship and campus. I'm helping Connie and Sang at Boston College, Cassidy at Brown, and Cayla and Young-Eun at Wellesley to think through that. Among the ideas include inviting Ugandan Catholic scholar Dr. Emmanuel Katongole, now at the Duke Center for Reconciliation, to speak about the question, "Does the Morality of Forgiveness Require a God of Forgiveness?" or something like that, perhaps on a panel with other professors from Muslim and atheist backgrounds. I returned home and, in one day, read through his book (co-authored with American evangelical Chris Rice) Reconciling All Things, deeply enjoying it. I found a way to contact him. Please pray that the Lord would help us sync our schedules. Second, I'm investigating a business idea for Uganda: bamboo farms. Bamboo grows wild in Uganda, but Ugandans don't use wood for housing because of termites and probably mold. But bamboo wood is increasingly used in the U.S. and Europe because it's more environmentally friendly. Please pray that I find some good connections.
To help me remember the lessons I've learned, and to help me pray for my new friends in Uganda, I wound up writing a poem about the red dust and red dirt of this land. The soil of Uganda is so rich in iron and other minerals that it is red. They make beautiful clay pottery out of this material. At the same time, the red dust was really hard to keep out of my light colored shirts and khaki pants. So I took that as a launching point for reflection about what God was showing me. I hope this poem gives you a sense for what we experienced, what I continue to receive from the Lord through Uganda, and perhaps how to pray for the Ugandan church as well.
Red Dust
On my white shirt, on Brian’s hair It follows me in, it waits on the floor To jump back on my feet outside the shower door
These red dirt roads wind on and on Past Kampala’s slums and Murchison Stretching farther than I can go Calling out and saying, Slow
Go slowly over the bumps and holes Eat matoke slowly from your bowls Move slowly to conserve your strength And hear these stories at greater length
Stories of hope along the red dirt road Of mothers dreaming as their children grow Like Irene, who studies while her little girl Plays by the green river of sewage swirls
A church prays for change to flow Like the integrity of martyrs bold
And trust in promises might be restored
Hopes flower and bloom in the dusty red From beneath the ground where the sandals tread Their roots must draw from a secret store Nourishment leaking from behind hope’s door
Yes, this red dust sings with whispering voice In creation’s chorus since Adam’s choice Groaning for God to one day extend The abandoned garden that He alone now tends
The red earth bleeds hope into every fruit Mouthfuls of longing sweet but mute Hope hides in the flesh inside mango skins It lingers on banana peels in garbage tins
Thick as the rain and the rich red mud These red dirt roads point to Eden’s soil Despite the dust and despite the toil
For rumors whisper from another land That the Son of God did come and command Our own red blood, in his body, like ours To receive the Father’s cleansing power
So hope lives in the flesh inside his own skin And lingers in an empty tomb in a small garden The Spirit, with whispers sweet and slow Says, Taste and eat, and renewed, go
Go down those red dirt roads and find Those loved by the Father before all time And the thick red dust will remind you still Of all the places He longs to fill
This red dust gets everywhere Though I wash my clothes, it stays right there But if it follows me home, perhaps I won’t mind Red gift of God, stay with me a long time |
Uganda
Trip: Thanks so much for your prayers for
our trip to Uganda. The 14 students and 6 staff had an
awesome time. We experienced so much! I tried to organize my sharing according to
themes. 
I
was deeply encouraged by the two organizations we were partnered
with while in Kampala and Gulu. FOCUS Uganda is the campus
ministry equivalent of InterVarsity USA. But whereas IVCF has
its headquarters on a peaceful street outside of Madison, WI,
FOCUS Uganda has its headquarters in the Mulago slums of
Kampala. They did this intentionally, to connect college
students to people dwelling in urban slum poverty. They have
staff dedicated to Child Project, a weekly program and support
system for children in Mulago who cannot go to school for
whatever reason (pictured). During June, FOCUS brings
college students here to serve the neighborhood, share Jesus
with people, visit the Mulago Hospital and pray for patients,
and observe the dynamics of sanitation and spiritual warfare
that happen here. FOCUS Uganda showed me how a campus ministry
might intentionally connect students and alumni with some of the
hardest issues and most pressing injustices of the country.
I
was also deeply impressed by Sports Outreach Ministry in Gulu.
A Ugandan man named Aloysius Kwazza started out with a soccer
ball reaching out to the Acholi people, the tribe targeted by
Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in the civil war. But he and his
team
realized that there are so many young people lacking farming and
agricultural skills because they had been abducted and were
fighting in the bush. So the Sports Outreach team started a
farm and developed agricultural projects. They help farmers in
the local area develop piggeries, hen houses, etc. They go to
the Remand Home in Pece, a prison, once a week to distribute a
few medical supplies and do some discipleship. They realized
that people needed counseling so they started an HIV mothers’
group, and launched a church
called New Beginnings Community Church on their farm (pictured). This led
to them planting two other churches: in Lugutu 45 minutes away
and Lajwatec 20 minutes away. They trained the pastors and
worship leaders. They do medical clinics over an hour away for
a remote village.
And they still do their main outreach and
programs through soccer clinics and tournaments. It was great
to see so many people engaged in the soccer program, to see them
smiling and cooperating and playing hard. Aloysius and Sports
Outreach Ministry show me a side of the church that is deeply
responsive to the needs around them, willing to stretch far
beyond what their original limitations were, and rely on God to
provide for them. We were blessed to have a team of Acholi
dancers perform some of their traditional dances for us
(pictured).
What
inspires Ugandan Christians? Other than Jesus, of course, the memory of their martyrs
is a source of inspiration. Between
1885 and 1887, the king of Buganda (the largest of the
traditional kingdoms now part of Uganda) killed young men in his
court who had turned to Jesus through both Catholic and Anglican
missions. These were the earliest Christians among
present-day Ugandans. King Mwanga was a young man who felt that
Christianity was a foreign influence; he felt threatened by
colonial powers, Islam, and other African kings. But one
of the major factors in his hatred for Christian faith was that
he was a pedophile; the courageous and faith-filled young men
refused to consent to him after they gave their lives to Christ.
They died by burning, dismemberment (including castration),
beheading, being speared, and in one case, torn apart by wild
dogs. In 1977, Anglican Archbishop Janani Luwum was also
martyred by Uganda's third president, military dictator Idi Amin
for criticizing Amin's arbitrary killings and the unexplained
disappearances of other leaders.
Uganda observes June 3rd, the day most of the early martyrs were
killed, as a national holiday: Uganda Martyrs Day.
The 22 Catholic martyrs were canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1964,
during Vatican II; that was the first time saints were named
from among Christians in modern Africa. Also, I thought it
was very interesting to learn that there is a university called
Uganda Martyrs University, with a student enrollment of over
4,600. The strong connection with ethics seems evident.
While they focus on agriculture, business, environment, health,
and science, they also have a Centre for the Detection and Study
of Fraud and a Centre for Good Governance and Peace Studies.
May God continue to bless the memory and heritage of Christian
faith in Uganda! 
There
in the Mulago slum community of Kampala, as all of us did
door-to-door visits, I got a glimpse of
God. I walked around the mud huts and shanty houses in the
slums with Neri, one of the Ugandan college students. Walking around the Mulago slum was almost
overwhelming on the first day. At first I was struck by how
densely populated the slums were, and how thick and intractable
the poverty seemed. It was the first time since I was in
Mexicali, Mexico when I was 17 years old and accepted Christ that I had been in
conditions like that. So it brought back memories of feeling
hopeless and overpowered. But when we did our door to door
visits through the slum, my perspective started to change. Neri
and I first met Janet, a woman in her 30’s who invited us into
her mud hut. We took off her shoes and went inside.
There were holes in the walls where the mud and thatched straw
had worn down. There was a triple bunk bed and another
bunk bed curtained off as a bedroom. There was a
television and some electricity. I wasn’t sure how she got
electricity. But Janet shared that she was a born again
Christian. Part of her story included the fact that before
she really gave her life to Jesus, she had had five children,
and all of them died very young. She and her husband
mourned. But after she gave her life to Jesus, she had
five more children, and all of them lived except for one.
I think that one died of sickness. She spoke with
great peace and a tone of hope in her voice. Her husband
worked for the police station right there in the slum community,
so he was at work. Two of her young children were right
outside the door; one was looking forward to going to a
university someday soon. I was amazed by the peace and
hope in her life, despite the fact that she lived in a one room
mud hut. Since we had studied Luke 10 that morning, about
the disciples raising up new disciples and staying at their
houses to train them, I asked, ‘Is there anyone in this area
that you would like us to talk to ?’ She didn’t miss a
beat, because she had a heart for ministry. She pointed to
a few houses. I was so encouraged that we were partners
for the kingdom; I didn’t fully expect to find a true sister in
the Lord! 
Next,
in
one of the small, circular, metal one room houses, we met Irene,
a young 27 year old woman who had a little girl, named Melon.
Irene’s older brother Gabriel had also come to live with them
because he was looking for work. Irene was finishing her
studies at Mulago Paramedical School. She and her brother
invited us into the very small, one room house, which was
impeccably clean. Sheets served as curtains to partition the
beds from the space where we sat. They gave us seats while they
sat on the floor. Irene bowed to me and Neri, as many
Ugandan women do when they meet older men. They were
already Christians, loved Jesus, and went to a church. They had
strong hopes for themselves and their community. They
wanted more people around them to know Jesus. They wanted
God to change aspects of their society, like the fact that many
of the police officers (neighbors of theirs) had to work 24-7
and were exhausted or had almost no time for their families or
for God. When I shared with them how in the U.S., in the
1800’s, Christians in the labor movement advocated for laws
against child labor, a limitation of 8 hours for a workday, and
labor rights, their eyes lit up with fascination. I felt
like God had filled them with hope for change, for Sabbath rest,
and for the removal of corruption. I felt like God was showing
me how much I had changed in the 23 years of knowing Jesus. I
did not despair; I could see spiritually, and see the hope and
peace and life and purpose that people did have, despite their
deep poverty. That was very different from the time I was 17
and in Mexicali, when I was just overwhelmed and unable to see
any of Jesus’ hope at all. Thank you, Lord, for the work you
have done in me.
Cayla Vila (a rising sophomore at Wellesley,
pictured here on the bus next to our Ugandan friend Paul Tiboti) said
that she had come to Uganda prepared to talk about the skeptic’s
question: Does suffering cast a long shadow of doubt on the
possibility of there being a good God? But instead, she found
that people in Uganda didn’t ask that question. Not one person
that she encountered did. They looked to a good God as the
basis for hope and change. This highlights something that
commonly comes up. Why is it that ‘the poor and the oppressed’
often have deep faith and hope in a good God, whereas the
affluent Westerner who hardly suffers in life looks upon the
poverty of ‘the poor and the oppressed’ and concludes that there
is no God? The skeptic argues that people in suffering are not
in their right mind, and look to an irrational hope for relief.
The believer argues that without a good God, human dignity would
have no foundation, human suffering would have neither moral
significance nor urgency, and hope would have no rational basis.
Whose perspective is more authoritative? Whose perspective
should be given more weight? 
One
of the greatest privileges of this trip was to serve alongside
some of the top Ugandan college students of their generation.
Our U.S. team joined their team on their 'June Mission.'
These are young people who dream of changing their society by
praying, having integrity, and fighting corruption. Some have gone
through great losses, like losing parents to HIV/AIDS, or seeing
dad treat mom rather poorly. Others have experienced the
love and power of Jesus in very tangible ways; for example, one
was sponsored by Compassion International as a child and is now
a great young man who loves ministry and wants to read my
Lazarus at the Gate / Global Poverty Impact curriculum to mobilize Christians to give
money to poor communities. 
I could talk about each of the Ugandan students
we met and how amazing each one of them is. But for the sake of
space, I’ll pick one: Michael, a young man who has seen
God at work to heal his parents' marriage, who prays
passionately and loves talking about Jesus and Scripture, along
with playing soccer and the scream game (pictured above). He is
studying nursing, which in Uganda is also a path to becoming a
doctor. To the right is a picture of Michael and BC
student Sang Yang working at the Sports Outreach medical clinic
in Gulu. He told me a story of being on the student leadership
team of a group trying to bridge differences between tribal
groups on campus. They were given money by the administration
that was somehow corrupt, and known to be corrupt. But they
turned it down even though it was a really hard decision and
meant that they had much less funding. Michael also had to stop
taking classes for a few weeks because of some misunderstanding
at the administration, perhaps because someone was expecting a
bribe; but he was reinstated a couple weeks
later when he argued his case. Michael wants to be a
gynecologist and cares a great deal about people’s physical and
spiritual health. He wants to care for the most vulnerable
people and families in his country. He dreams of a Uganda
that is free of the besetting corruption, that has more fairness
and justice, and that treats its people well. When I compare
the Mulago Hospital and its huge needs with people like Michael
and his Christ-shaped hopes and dreams, I do feel hope and a
sense of honor that I was able to become his friend.
One of our activities in Kampala was to visit
various places in the community around the FOCUS Uganda office.
Osborn, Brian, and I were assigned to the ‘boda boda’ men: guys
who are motorcycle taxi drivers. They do a low status job in
their society. A group of boda boda men hang out down the
street from the FOCUS office. Supposedly some of them had said
they were interested in spiritual conversation, particularly
about HIV/AIDS. Osborn, Brian, and I walked over. We tried to
start a conversation, but all the men were playing or watching a
gambling game. If this were the U.S., they would have laughed
us off and told us to go away. Ugandans are far more polite.
The men tolerated our presence, probably wondering about me
since I was obviously not Ugandan. One guy named Dominic talked
to us as he watched the game. Brian translated for me, and
Brian was getting discouraged. He could pick up the tone and
attitude that this guy was giving us. Dominic didn’t want to
hear anything from us. So I asked him, ‘What do you believe?’
He said, ‘I believe in the traditional African gods.’
One of the unexpected things about this trip was
our engagement with Muslims. In Kampala, we visited the Kaddafi
mosque, which is a beautiful building that sits on a hill
overlooking the city. Emma, Neri, Audrey and I met a man named
Adam, a mason, in the Mulago slum. The first time we met him,
he showed great kindness to us by stopping his work (he was putting
mortar on a wall) and talking to us for about 90 minutes. The
Ugandan students didn’t get very far with him because he had
rebuttals for us just preaching about Jesus. I asked him,
‘Don’t you believe that the prophet Mohammed had to be cleansed
of something in order to receive the revelation of the Qur’an?’
He said yes. I asked, ‘What was he cleansed of? And how come
the rest of us can’t be cleansed like that?’ He agreed that
there is something about being human that makes us need
cleansing, but that we can be cleansed by reading the Qur’an and
doing the five pillars of Islam. I also learned a few pointers from Audrey, the
FOCUS staff who walked with us and talked with Adam the first
day. She had been in discussion groups with Muslim women
before, where she asked them questions about the Qur’an and what
they believed. She encouraged me to go back to talk to Adam the
next day. 
The city of Gulu is the second largest city in
Uganda and the capital of the district also called Gulu. That
is the district where there was much warfare between the Ugandan
army and the rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army led by the
now notorious Joseph Kony. Men and women we met shared
about having been abducted by this rebel army when they were
children. They were made to kill, sometimes even their own
family members. Some were able to run away and escape the
rebel army. They came back home, hoping to be received.
Some were and some were not, because they had done terrible
things. The men we met said, ‘At first, we thought we were
fine, but then we started to have nightmares, and hear voices,
and become very angry.’ We went with
the staff of Sports Outreach Ministry on their visits to the
prison, called the Remand Home in Pece, Gulu. We
could not and did not take pictures, so I found this picture
above on the web. This
first visit, on a Tuesday, was a bit disorganized, and I was frustrated. I
also wondered if anything we said would be meaningful to the
thirty men wearing the yellow prison uniform sitting before us.
Two Ugandan students, Michael and Neri, shared about Jesus
setting us free and Jesus loving us. I went third, and shared
about Jesus giving us courage and strength. I shared with the
thirty men that when I looked at them, I thought of my friend in
Dorchester, Nick, his
imprisonment for several years, and the hard road ahead of him
as he comes out of the pre-release center with a felony on his
record. When I gave an invitation to receive the love and
empowerment of Jesus, many prayed and one named Patrick came
forward to receive Jesus. 
We
went back on Friday. This time two American students
shared. Cassidy shared about relating to Jesus personally
and Amy shared about Jesus cleansing us from shame and guilt
(both pictured here with Esther, Mackenzie, Neri, and Brian behind
them). I wove
their sharing into Matthew’s Gospel as a whole, saying that
Jesus entrusted us with bearing his life-changing teaching.
During the prayer ministry time, seven men came forward to receive Jesus that day. Then they
asked us to come back on Sunday, for a church service. We did.
On Sunday morning, it was raining, and 90 – 100 men were crowded
into one of the wards. We sat in front. Monick, one of the
FOCUS Uganda staff, shared about being a vessel of the love of
God. I spoke on how Jesus sets us free from the evil one. I talked about the terrible dreams
and voices and emotions that some of them said they had after
being in the bush with the rebel army. When I gave the
invitation to receive Jesus and switch sides in this spiritual
war, ten men came forward. Then, the
Anglican minister who was also there asked to pray for the sick,
others came forward to be prayed for. One guy fell to the
ground, his muscles went rigid; he lifted one tense arm into the
air as his face was in a grimace. The Anglican minister started
to point and shout at him, apparently to cast out a demon, if
indeed this was a demon. I knelt down beside him, put my hand
on his shoulder and began praying for the Lord to give him
peace. After a while, the man’s muscles relaxed. His face
relaxed from a painful grimace to a look of surprise. He sat
back up. The man next to him helped him to sit. I was saddened
that we couldn’t talk to this man more and hear his story.
Instead, we were shooed out of the ward because they were on a
tighter time line and wanted to end the meeting. I left
wondering what had happened to that man, but amazed by the
attendance and the response. God’s heart to heal and restore
these men was very evident.
One of the most fascinating things about this
trip for me and many of the American students was the exposure
to elements of spiritual warfare. Our Ugandan counterparts,
however, talked about witch doctors, demons, curses, and other
things as being routine. Several of the Ugandans, like
Carolyne, Aaron, and Paul (pictured), were particularly
helpful in explaining to us what that is like. One of the Ugandan college students on
our team, Emmanuel ‘Emma’ Chagara (pictured below), said that his father once sat
in church but turned to witchcraft because of a desire to get
rich. He thought he could control his fortunes, so he consulted
a witch doctor and maybe even became one himself. When he
acrimoniously divorced his wife (when Emma was very young), he
moved out of the house. But weird things started happening in
the house: banging on the roof, footsteps on the floor,
howling, etc. These were unexplained sounds. The sounds would
come during the night or day.
Emma, his mom, and his sisters
would pray against these things and sometimes the stuff would
stop. But at other times, they felt helpless. At some point,
they moved out of the house. But during his last year of
university, Emma read in Scripture about our identity in Christ,
the Christ who rules over the
powers and authorities and the forces of darkness (Eph.1:20 -
23). And he
became confident that what was written there was true: Jesus
shares his authority with his people. So Emma went back to his
mom’s house this past Christmas break 2011. One of his sisters
told him he was crazy. But another of his sisters went with
him. Together they prayed for the Lord to protect them and to
kick out any remaining demonic influence. Their first night
was…quiet. So was the second night. And the third. Their
mom’s house seemed to be cleansed. So the family moved back in!
Our
Ugandan friends led us in a dance, so to speak. I learned that the boldness of our Ugandan
friends can be very helpful and effective. While walking the Mulago slums in Kampala, some of my Ugandan friends would go up
to people, and politely start a conversation. Since Ugandans
feel strongly about offering hospitality, many people would
happily chat with us and even invite us into their small homes.
The more bold Ugandan students would ask if they could ‘share
their testimony about Jesus,’ or even ‘preach.’ Most people
were okay with that language and expected it, even if they
themselves were not Christians! 
Similarly, in Gulu, I went with Cassidy, Cayla,
and our Acholi friend Robert (staff at Sports Outreach) to visit the neighbors around the
Sports Outreach Ministry center. This was in the country. We
walked down a path where the wild African grass grew as tall as
our heads (see picture). We came upon three women sitting outside a hut
talking while several children played. Their names were Irene,
Agnes, and Margaret. After some greetings, and explaining that
we were a team of U.S. and Ugandan students here to see what God
was doing in northern Uganda to bring about restoration after
the civil war, these women opened up about their spiritual
lives. Agnes said she was a ‘born again Christian’ already.
Irene, however, said she had started going to a church for the
last 4 months but did not yet believe. She had some questions.
And Margaret said that she used to go to church and have a
relationship with Jesus but she married a man who doesn’t
believe and doesn’t want her to go to church. I asked, ‘Has
anyone ever explained to you why Jesus is important to God?’
Irene and Margaret said no. I asked, ‘Do you think something is
wrong with us as human beings?’ They said, certainly yes. I
explained Jesus as God personally taking human flesh to himself
in order to work out a solution to the disease inside us all.
This made sense to them. Irene said through Robert’s
interpreting that she was ready to believe and make a commitment
to Jesus. Margaret also wanted to have a personal relationship
with Jesus again. I was awestruck. But just then, a man rode
up on a motorcycle, waved, and sat down. His name was John.
Upon hearing our conversation, he said in English he also wanted
to become a ‘born again Christian.’ So Cayla and Cassidy went
with Robert to pray with the women, and I could tell the two
women – Cayla was from Wellesley and Cassidy from Brown – were
amazed that this was happening. Since John spoke English, I
just talked with him some more and got more of his story. I
asked him what had held him back before this. He said, ‘Smoking
cigarettes.’ Smoking? I said that smoking wasn’t listed in the
Bible as a sin, although from a health perspective I agreed with
him that it would be wise to stop. Nevertheless, he felt that
his addiction to cigarettes was a problem. So I said that I
know people who were able to stop and that the Spirit of Jesus
would be able to help him, and that Jesus doesn’t ask us to get
our lives together. He said he wanted Jesus’ help, and wanted
to believe. So we prayed! I was still awestruck by a sense
that God loved these people, and impressed that they were open
to Jesus. 
Perhaps in New England, we
tiptoe around atheism too much. Once people believe in a
god, or a supernatural world, then they just have to compare
beliefs. Also, the strong presence of Christian faith in Uganda
means that people have usually had a decent exposure to it.
Probably most importantly, Uganda’s strong culture of hospitality also means that people
are more open to hearing from each other. It doesn’t
necessarily mean that people are more willing to believe things
just right off the bat, as plenty of other people we encountered
didn’t want to believe. So it made me feel better that those
who did believe did so not because I was a mzungu (foreigner or
‘white person’) and they wanted to be polite. But the
amazing thing is this: Our whole team of InterVarsity
and FOCUS Uganda students and staff counted 77 people who came
to Christ for the first time, with lots more recommitments,
mostly through visiting people in their homes, in schools, or in
the prison. I’m encouraged that this happened as part
of the community engagement strategies of FOCUS Uganda in
Kampala and Sports Outreach Ministry in Gulu. And I'm
definitely encouraged to
be personal and direct back at home in the U.S.!
This
red dust gets everywhere
That corruption would one day be no more
And Eden’s soil flows in all our blood